The thirty minutes it was supposed to take for him to meet Orton turned out to be longer because the 6 train was out of service. When he finally made it, the Crown Vic was parked outside of the building he'd been told his partner would be.

There was police tape up and a few black and whites parked nearby as well. He flashed his badge at the Uniform near the door and the tape was lifted enough for him to duck beneath it step inside.

Randy was already there, bent over the body of their victim and talking with the city medical examiner.

"What took you so long?"

"There were service issues on the 6."

"The 6 doesn't run by your apartment," Randy started before smirking. "Ah, the sweet little piece."

"Just tell me what we've got, Orton."

"Our Jane Doe is in her early 20's, no ID on her. She was stabbed multiple times. There are defensive wounds on her arms. There's no sign of blood loss here. This place most likely isn't our crime scene. Seems more like a dumpsite. The body's been positioned."

"Signs of sexual assault?" Seth asked.

"Nothing that I could tell, but she took a beating and I'll run more extensive tests when I get her to the lab," the medical examiner responded.

"What about a time of death?"

"The body was moved, I don't have anything concrete, but if I had to guess, I'd say last night at between 7:00 and 11:00pm. I can narrow that window more conclusively later."

Seth nodded before bending down to examine the victim closer. Her eyes were still open, they were green and he was struck by how much the girl reminded him of Amber.

"There's something else," the medical examiner spoke, shaking Seth from his thoughts. "The patterns of the stab marks is unusual. You see these here? They were shallow, but methodical. Meant to cause pain, but not to kill. If I had to guess this one here is the fatal one. Whoever did this knew what they were doing and they took time in making sure that she suffered as much as possible. Like I said, I'll know more once we get her to the lab."

"You okay, Rollins?" Randy asked. "You look even more green than your first day on the job."

"Yeah, I'm fine," Seth mumbled even as his stomach lurched.

"Are you okay?" Amber asked, trying to look him in the eye. But as the two of them sat together at the small Italian restaurant a few blocks from her apartment, he busied himself looking at the window, at his phone, anywhere but at her.

"Hmmm?" he asked as his eyes scanned for a server so he could ask why it was taking so long to run his credit card for the check.

"You just seem distracted. Did something happen at work?"

"I don't want to talk about it," he insisted and when she started to say something else, he cut her off, pinching the bridge of his nose and willing his headache away. "Can we just not talk at all, for a minute?" He sighed. "I don't know why the waiter is taking so long with the damn check."

A moment passed before he finally looked at her and he instantly felt a pang of guilt. Her shoulders were hunched and she was pushing around the remains of her food with her fork. She wouldn't look up at him now.

"Amber," he prodded gently as the waiter dropped the check off at the table.

Instantly, her shoulders squared and she looked at him as he signed the merchant copy of the receipt and dropped some bills onto the table for the tip. She stood up before he even put his card back into his wallet and she was taking off towards the door. His legs were longer, so he caught up with her faster than she most likely expected him to.

"I'm sorry," he tried as they walked in the direction of her apartment building.

"It's fine," she replied and he might have believed her if it hadn't taken an entire block for her to actually say it.

When she let herself into the front of her building and held the door open for him, he thought that maybe she was giving him the chance to explain himself. But the truth was, he didn't know how to. He thought maybe once they were in her apartment, the place that had become a sanctuary to him in the recent few weeks.

In the elevator, he spent the uncomfortably silent ride finally looking at her for the first time that night. Her normally straight dark hair was set in loose curls. While she normally didn't wear make up, she'd taken the time to wear some that night (not that she needed it, in his opinion). Her dress clung to her body in all of the right places. She'd taken time and care in getting ready for their first date together and he hadn't even taken a moment earlier to notice and tell her she looked beautiful.

Instead though, the moment her apartment door closed and locked behind them he found himself pulled into the bedroom and shoved against the wall with Amber's lips on his neck and her hands on his belt.

"Woah, Amb. Slow down a bit."

"Why?"

Before he could answer, her lips fused to his and he had to place his hands on her shoulders and push her gently away.

When he finally put some distance between them, the look on her face tore through his heart.

"Amber, I'm sorry about earlier," he tried again, hoping to make the look of hurt disappear from her face.

"It's fine," she insisted. "I get it."

"No, I don't think that you do."

"I do. Seth, I'm not stupid. There are the kinds of girls that you date. And then there are the kinds of girls you call up at 3 in the morning because there's no place else to go. They are not interchangeable. It was sweet of you to try," she laughed softly, but it wasn't the giggle that made something warm spread inside his chest. It made him feel even more hollow inside than he had before he'd come to pick her up. "This is what we do," she concluded, her hands finding his belt again but he pried her hands away and lifted his own to cup her face.

"It's not you, okay? It's the case I'm working on," he explained, but her expression remained impassive. "It was brutal, and we're no closer to catching the guy than we were when we started. The victim, she was in her early twenties, dark hair, green eyes. She reminded me of you." Seth felt all of his control slipping, his voice cracked with emotion and suddenly her arms were around him.

"It's okay," she whispered. "I'm okay. I'm sorry for getting so upset, Seth."

"You have every right to be upset with me, by all accounts I was a pretty horrible first date."

"What if that was just a practice run? We can try again, but only if you really want to."

"I do." Seth wound his arms around her, one hand finding the zipper of her dress and tugging it down. She shrugged out of it until it pooled at her feet and bent to kiss him. Her own thumbs hooked in the waistband of her panties, but he grabbed her wrists and shook his head. "Tonight we sleep. Tomorrow, we do whatever you want. Wherever you want to go. And we'll have a do-over date."

"I have to work late tomorrow night. But soon?"

"Soon. And tomorrow night, I want to come pick you up from work and walk you home."

"Seth," she started softly but didn't continue to argue, instead she just nodded and sat down on his lap. "But all the girls I work with will be so jealous when you show up. I'm going to have to beat 'em back with a stick."

Grinning, he met her lips with his own.

He knew that something was wrong. He watched her as she bustled around her apartment, straightening up and fussing around with things that didn't need fussing over.

She was in the kitchen, reaching up to the cupboards to fuss with her coffee mugs before he stepped behind her, arm wrapping around her waist and dropping a kiss to her shoulder.

"What's wrong?"

"What makes you think something is wrong?"

"Well, for one thing, I've been here for an hour and you haven't stopped moving around. Did you alphabetize your cereal earlier?"

She sighed softly and he loosened his hold enough for her to turn around, but she wouldn't meet his eyes. "I got a call back about a job, I did an on-the-spot interview at a recruitment event before I even met you. I never thought they'd really consider me."

"You sell yourself short. What's the job?"

"It's position with the FBI, analyst work," she muttered. "If I get it, there's a nine week training program in Quantico."

"In Virginia," he said slowly, his hold loosening on her.

"I don't have to take it. I mean I applied to a bunch of jobs in New York too."

"But you want it," he said gently, dipping his chin to rest his forehead against hers. They stood there like that for a moment and when she opened her mouth to break the silence, he kissed her instead, his tongue running over her lower lip just before she wrapped her arms around him.

He lifted her onto the kitchen counter and she parted her legs so he could step between them, he dropped kisses to her neck, her shoulder; any part of her that he could reach. His hands skimmed up her thighs and gripped them tightly and he smiled against her skin when she started tugging on his shirt to pull it over his head. The moment she'd rid him of it, he kissed the tip of her nose.

"Come on," he said gently, stepping back to help her down. He led her to the bedroom, stopping short of the bed and stepping behind her to drag down the zipper of her dress. He pressed his lips against every inch of skin as it was exposed to him before she pushed it off of her shoulders and it pooled at her feet.

When she climbed onto the bed and reclined against the pillows, he took a moment to look at her, to memorize every curve.

"Stop," she said softly.

"What?"

"Stop looking at me like that. Like you're worried about forgetting…"

He joined her on the bed, crawling between her legs and bending down to kiss her.

"I could stay," she whispered against his lips, her hands sliding down his chest to the button of his jeans, her fingers deftly undoing them and pushing them down his hips. He stroked himself as she looked up at him expectantly but, in all honesty, he didn't trust himself to speak just yet. She reached for a condom from her end table and sat up slightly, tearing the foil package and expertly rolling it over his length. He groaned at the sight of her hands on him and kissed her lips again, before reaching to drag the head of his cock along her wet folds.

When he slid inside of her, her eyes fluttered closed and he pressed kisses to her lips, her cheeks, her eyelids – everywhere. The pace they set was slow and she arched her body to meet his every thrust, he whispered for her to open her eyes and she did – staring into his own eyes as their bodies moved together.

She chanted his name like it was a prayer. He found her hands, lacing his fingers with hers and pinning them to the bed as he felt his restraint snap. He fused his lips to hers as he came and soon after her own thighs trembled and her tighten and flutter around him, milking the last of his release from his body.

They stayed like that for a few more moments, trading soft kisses.

"I know you could stay," he finally whispered when their breathing had evened out. "But I don't want you to miss out on this opportunity."

"So this is it?" Her voice was so small and unsure, Seth was halfway tempted to tell her to stay – to keep exploring what this was between them. The past few weeks had been incredible and the thought of letting her go made his chest feel tight. "We never had our second first date."

"Hey." He brought her hand up and nudged her chin gently until she met his gaze again. "This isn't it. Not by a long shot. I'll see you again."

"How do you know?" When he remained silent for a long moment, she shook her head. "Never mind. I don't want to talk about it right now." She curled into him and he felt her shoulders shake lightly and knew that she was crying. Everything he seemed to want to say to her wouldn't come out, so instead he kissed her on the top of the head and held her until she fell asleep.

…

"Is this all you're going with?" Seth asked as he watched her zip up her suitcase.

"Yeah, my family is going to keep the apartment for me until training is over. Depending on where my first assignment is, we'll ship or store what's left." Amber fiddled around before walking to her record player, closing it and latching it up and putting a stack of records on top of it. "I want you to take this."

Seth blinked at her for a moment before shaking his head. "I can't take your record player, Amber."

"You're just holding it on for me. I have the bigger one from my bedroom that I'm going to eventually ship and I want you to have this one. Please?"

He sighed and nodded before reaching out for her, pulling her against him. "I'm going to miss you while you're gone."

She sighed softly and hugged him back tightly. "I'll see you again," she echoed his words from over a week ago, the night she'd fallen asleep crying softly in his arms. Since then, she'd passed the final interview stages and had been accepted to the analyst training program.

"You will," he promised, dipping his head down to kiss her softly.

"We don't say goodbye then," she insisted.

"Okay."

"Can I call you?"

"You can call me as often as you want, Amber. I want you to." They stood there for a moment in her living room before she bobbed her head and reluctantly took a step back. "Come on, your uncle is waiting downstairs in the car."

He dragged her suitcase behind them as they left her apartment and, inside the elevator, he let go of the handle to push her gently against the wall and capture her lips with his own. She moaned softly into his mouth, one hand reaching up to tangle fingers in his hair. When they pulled away, she looked up at him sadly. "That felt like 'goodbye.'"

"Nah," he shook his head. "That was just me trying to get something to hold me over until I see you again." He smiled at her when the sad look on her face dissipated and she giggled.

Much like he did the first time that they met, she watched him from the side view mirror when her uncle's car pulled away from the curb to drive her to the airport. Her eyes didn't leave him until the car turned a corner and he was out of view.